Subtitles and Transcript

Damian Palin

0:11
I collaborate with bacteria.And I'm about to show yousome stop-motion footage that I made recentlywhere you'll see bacteria accumulating mineralsfrom their environmentover the period of an hour.

0:22
So what you're seeing hereis the bacteria metabolizing,and as they do sothey create an electrical charge.And this attracts metalsfrom their local environment.And these metals accumulate as mineralson the surface of the bacteria.

0:37
One of the most pervasive problemsin the world today for peopleis inadequate accessto clean drinking water.And the desalination processis one where we take out salts.We can use it for drinking and agriculture.Removing the salts from water --particularly seawater --through reverse osmosisis a critical techniquefor countries who do not have access to clean drinking wateraround the globe.

1:01
So seawater reverse osmosisis a membrane-filtration technology.We take the water from the seaand we apply pressure.And this pressure forces the seawaterthrough a membrane.This takes energy,producing clean water.But we're also left with a concentrated salt solution, or brine.

1:21
But the process is very expensiveand it's cost-prohibitive for many countries around the globe.And also, the brine that's producedis oftentimes just pumped back out into the sea.And this is detrimental to the local ecologyof the sea area that it's pumped back out into.

1:34
So I work in Singapore at the moment,and this is a place that's really a leading placefor desalination technology.And Singapore proposes by 2060to produce [900] million liters per dayof desalinated water.But this will produce an equally massive amountof desalination brine.And this is where my collaboration with bacteria comes into play.

1:57
So what we're doing at the momentis we're accumulating metalslike calcium, potassium and magnesiumfrom out of desalination brine.And this, in terms of magnesiumand the amount of water that I just mentioned,equates to a $4.5 billionmining industry for Singapore --a place that doesn't have any natural resources.

2:19
So I'd like you to image a mining industryin a way that one hasn't existed before;imagine a mining industrythat doesn't mean defiling the Earth;imagine bacteria helping us do thisby accumulating and precipitatingand sedimenting mineralsout of desalination brine.And what you can see hereis the beginning of an industry in a test tube,a mining industry that is in harmony with nature.